Saturday, April 14, 2007

No idea how this weekend is gonna go – The Postmen are already lamenting the reality that there isn’t a whole heckuva lot going on – so why not start things off with a quote from my favorite announcer, Boston Celtics Hall of Famer Tommy Heinsohn.

At some point this season, the Celtics decided to throw a party on April 13 to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the team’s first NBA championship. (Nothing sums up the fall of the Boston Celtics like this little tidbit: on the day they lauded the beginning of a dynasty, the 2007 C’s clinched the second-worst record in the league.) Surviving players from the team were invited to the Garden (it might be sacrilege to refer to the Arena Formerly Known As The FleetCenter as “the Garden”, but I don’t remember the current name) and honored throughout the telecast.

I flipped to the game as Heinsohn and Mike Gorman were interviewing NBA Hall of Famer Arnie Risen, who enjoyed his best seasons with Rochester but spent the tail end of his career in Boston, including the 1956-57 championship season. They were watching a highlight film of Risen’s Celtics days and talking about the memories it brought up when a shot of Risen running the floor came on the screen, prompting Heinsohn to note, “Pretty good runnin’ for a guy with a broken arm.”

Now, I know what he meant. You can’t really run with a broken arm because the impact will jar the busted bone and cause a lot of pain. Okay. But the way he said it – like everything that comes out of Tommy Heinsohn’s mouth, it was uttered with great conviction – I half expected to look up at the television and see Risen charging down the floor on his hands.